DAFFODIL ENDGAME STATEMENTS
GM: Brian Frew
STARTED: 6th February 2000.
FINISHED: April 2001.
RESULT: English WIN!

Austria      Mathew Percy.
England      Rohan Churm.
France       David McConchie.
Germany      Ashley Davidson.
Italy        Nicholas Easom.
Russia       Roy Upson.
Turkey       Bill Brodsky.

        01 02 03 04 05 06  07  08 09  10  11  12
AUSTRIA  3  5  7  8  8  9  10  10  9   7   6   4
ENGLAND  3  5  8  8  8  9  10  11  11 14  16  19
FRANCE   3  2  1  0 
GERMANY  3  5  6  7  6  4   2   1  1   0
ITALY    3  5  5  7  8  9   9  10  11 11  10  10
RUSSIA   4  5  4  3  3  2   2   2  2   2   2   1
TURKEY   3  4  3  1  1  1*  1*  0*

* Countries in Anarchy

England: Rohan Churm.
I very much enjoyed this game, and not only because I had my first ever e-mail solo! It was more because the GM'ing was excellent and the three week turns made playing very relaxed. England's domination came about gradually with gains in almost every game year I think, apart from the year including my NMR abberation early on which I was lucky didn't cost me.

I was fortunate to be confronted with two potential allies early on in France and Germany, which made life a lot easier than two enemies, but my first aim for an alliance was Nick in Italy. This is because whichever way it went I knew that Italy would have a say in the western half of the board early on, but that also I would not want to fight. In the end I chose to attack France and fortunately the channel was occupied. The three way attack on David left him with no chance really and soon the SC's were divided between the succesful occupiers.

Russia had given me a scare early on with an aggresive northern advance from Moscow to St P in the first move. This could have left me with no builds in my first turn but I was able to persuade Russia to stay out of Norway and Ashley also bounced Russia in Sweden so the Roy seemed to be in trouble in the north. With the Ashley and Matthew clearly allied and moving fast east into Russia, and Bill in Turkey also faring badly an offer from Roy to support England was accepted, and Nick agreed that we would try to move east against the teutonic powers. If England can get rid of both Germany and France then she is also almost guaranteed to be around at the end as there are no fleets that can come near at all easily. As an unexperienced dipper the thought of survival was still very high at this stage and so it was only once Germany was conquered and England finally had a build up of armies in europe that thoughts of a stab on italy entered my mind. It had always been my plan that we would work together against the remaining austrians and race to 18 but the vast extra numbers of italian armies near the SC's left nick ahead in any envisaged race.

I therefore made the leap for victory and was lucky enough to get there, though I think better co-ordination may have left me sunk as many of my fleets were fairly useless and even with 19 SC's at the end the English position does not look tactically sound. I also almost shot myself in the foot again by NMRing on the final turn, but managed to rectify the situation in the early afternoon.

Thanks to all my opponents, and particularly Brian, we must do it again sometime.

Italy: Nicholas Easom.
I had never played PBEM before, so when I drew Italy I thought I was probably in for a rough ride. I decided early on that I didn't really trust Germany, and Austria seemed rather quiet. Despite that I thought try the Lepanto and see what comes of it.

I was so concerned with staying alive early on that when France and Turkey dropped out I wasn't quite sure what to do. I decided to help England against a German player I wasn't too sure about, while Austria slowly pulled Russia apart. I did not think it was in my interest to let Austria reach the edge of the board, so I decided belatedly to attack Austria and support Russia for her Black Sea fleet. Once I was well and truly committed England stabbed me in the West, and the rest is history.

Rohan as England was good to play against, and he seemed such a nice guy He was much more talkative than Matt (Austria), which was why I ended up helping England into Belgium whilst forcing Austria out of Greece. Would I have been better off sailing out into the North Atlantic? Who can say? If anyone had said to me in 1901 I would end the game as the second largest power I would have been happy with that.

Finally I have to thank Roy for playing on with two centres for about 6 years when his dropping out could have seriously unbalanced the game. Cheers!

Brian Frew: GM.
The game end statements neatly sum things up. Rohan played steadily, but a 3 way draw seemed the most likely outcome until the departure of Austria provided him with the opportunity he needed to go for an outright win. As GM I would like to reinforce the thanks to Roy Upson who battled on in adversity where others who were better placed disappeared.